Emancipating from Autonomy
Ethnography of Deliberation Sessions on the Status of Indigenous Peasant Autonomy of Tarabuco (Bolivia, 2010–2023)
Abstract
In 2010, following the approval of the constitutional right of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples and nations to political autonomy, the new Ministry of Autonomies is rushing to enforce it in various pilot indigenous municipalities. One of the candidates is the municipality of Tarabuco, renowned nationally and internationally for its material and ritual culture. An ethnography of the sessions of the assembly in charge of drafting a statute of autonomy, a local constitution to be recognized by the state in order to have access to the regime, shows the different perspectives of the process according to membership of local political institutions and organizations. After years of dispute, the organizations in place decided to abandon the process, which was deemed too dirigiste, leaving no room for in-depth debate on what becoming autonomous meant locally. The scuttling of the process was seen as a sovereign gesture in the face of attempts to impose a prefabricated autonomy system.
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